CAMPAIGN 2012

Presidential campaigns focus on wealthy donors over swing states

Donor-rich New York and California have complained for years that candidates shirk them in favor of visiting battleground areas. But with a competitive money race, President Obama and Mitt Romney have changed that pattern.

President Obama speaks at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. (Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty…)

LAS VEGAS —In three days of campaign travel this last week, President Obama spent just two hours on the soil of a battleground state — a small fraction of his time given that voters in those places are expected to decide the election.

Instead, Obama rubbed elbows with wealthy donors in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. They hadn't shelled out $20,000 apiece just to cheer and watch him from a distance at a big rally.

For years, the complaint in donor-rich states, including New York, Illinois and California, has been that presidential candidates take them for granted and seldom show up to campaign. But the race for money is vastly more competitive this year — and the list of actual battleground states is even smaller than before. The net effect is that both Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney have spent a great deal of quality time in a few wealthy enclaves cloistered with the country's prosperous elite.

The rest of America — states that are neither wealthy nor battlegrounds — increasingly has become flyover territory.

Only in recent elections has the list of campaign stops become so limited. Two trends have combined to greatly constrict it: increased political polarization, which has sorted states into a reliable pattern of blue and red, and a greatly stepped-up battle for money.

In 1976, about 59% of the U.S. population lived in battleground states — those that were won by less than a 5-percentage-point margin — according to data compiled by Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz. By 2008, only 20% of the population lived in battleground states, and the figure could drop even more this year.

On the flip side, almost half of voters in 2008 lived in states that either Obama or John McCain won by a margin of 15 percentage points or more.

Then there's the money race. In 2008, Obama abandoned the system of partial public financing of presidential campaigns. This time around, Republicans have followed suit, meaning that both men must raise huge sums. Unlike the last election, in which Obama greatly outspent McCain, Republicans this time will at least equal — and probably outspend — the Democrat.

The resulting contrast in campaigns is particularly striking for Obama. In 2008, he spent countless hours perched on a stage with his sleeves rolled up, taking questions at televised town hall meetings. This year, at least for now, those town halls have morphed into private question-and-answer sessions behind closed doors, over finger sandwiches and catered cuisine.

Last week, the president spent much of a two-day trip with the political elite of San Francisco and Los Angeles. He took questions at high-dollar events, measuring the temperature of actors and Hollywood executives in the cozy courtyard of the home of Ryan Murphy, the creator of "Glee." The next morning, he stopped in at the hilltop home of real estate developer Charles Quarles, where 300 people paid at least $2,500 to eat omelets in the presence of the president.

Before leaving Beverly Hills, Obama met privately with a small group of the younger Hollywood, including actors Zach Braff ("Scrubs"), Jeremy Renner ("The Hurt Locker") and Dianna Agron ("Glee").

From there, he zipped through Las Vegas, the economically battered city he will need to carry overwhelmingly if he is to have a hope of winning Nevada, a swing state. He delivered a speech that involved little interaction with voters, save for a moment when he mentioned the housing crisis and the plague of underwater mortgages. The crowd of about 2,500 reacted with a knowing groan.

In a typical campaign week, Obama gives speeches in key swing districts or tours factory floors, pausing to talk with workers wearing hard hats or protective eye gear. Each conversation typically lasts a few minutes and focuses on the work in front of them. Television cameras follow the entire interaction.

Afterward, usually, the president does a couple of high-dollar fundraisers elsewhere while the cameramen and reporters wait outside.

Obama advisors say the president doesn't like chasing money, but has to compete with a new reality for Democrats.

Romney advisor Ed Gillespie called the emphasis on fundraising a strategic choice with a high price tag for Obama.

"It has been detrimental to his identity as a new kind of change agent," Gillespie said at a recent media breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News. "I think they've concluded they're going to need a lot of money, and so they're willing to take these hits along the way in order to have the cash balance."

One such hit involved a Web video of Vogue editor Anna Wintour — prototype for the haughty magazine editor in "The Devil Wears Prada" — inviting donors to a fundraising event with Michelle Obama. The Obama campaign released the video the same day the unemployment rate climbed to 8.2%.